"As oil in a sesamum seeds, as butter in cream, as water in riverbeds, as fire in friction sticks, so is the Self seized in one's own soul if one looks for Him with truthfulness and austerity."
- Svetasvatara Upanishad I.15

New
York, Nov 28 (IANS) India's ruling United Progressive Alliance
(UPA) has done little to launch an effective fight against
terrorism and may "pay a price for its incompetence"
in the elections next year, the Wall Street Journal said in
its lead editorial Friday.

"A
lack of political leadership is to blame," The Wall Street
Journal said as India's financial capital continued to battle
terrorists who had struck in 10 places in the city Wednesday.

The
Mumbai terror attacks, in which at least 125 people have been
killed, have been covered extensively in both the print and
online edition of this New York-based daily financial newspaper.

"It
(the ruling party) may pay a price for its incompetence at
the national polls next year," the newspaper said.

"Yesterday
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh promised that 'every perpetrator
would pay the price'. Yet his Congress Party has done little
more than bicker with its coalition allies over the past five
years on how best to fight terrorism," the journal said.

Observing
that the attacks are a reminder that India is at the top of
the terror target list, the newspaper said this is because
India is an easy target.

Not
only are its intelligence units understaffed and lack resources,
coordination among State police forces is also poor. "The
country's anti-terror legal architecture is also inadequate;
there is no preventive detention law, and prosecutions can
take years," it said.

"Wednesday's
attacks should arouse Indians to better confront the terror
threat, while reminding all democracies how dangerous that
threat still is," it said.

In
another opinion piece published by The Journal, author Sadanand
Dhume blamed the Congress for scrapping the anti-terror law
POTA. "On taking office in 2004, one of the first acts
of the ruling Congress Party was to scrap a federal antiterrorism
law that strengthened witness protection and enhanced police
powers," he wrote.

"The
Congress Party has stalled similar state-level legislation
in Gujarat, which is ruled by the opposition Hindu-nationalist
Bharatiya Janata Party. And it was a Congress government that
kowtowed to fundamentalist pressure and made India the first
country to ban Mumbai-born Salman Rushdie's 'Satanic Verses'
in 1988," he said.

Dhume,
a Washington-based writer and author of "My Friend the
Fanatic: Travels with an Indonesian Islamist", said the
Indian approach to terrorism has been consistently haphazard
and weak-kneed.